Wolf in Wool
by Alicia Ann Fox
Summary: Vila was not always as he was on the Liberator. Stress during "Orbit" releases his true personality.
1. Default Chapter

Wolf in Wool **Wolf in Wool  
Alicia Ann Fox  
**   
  


The shuttle lurched as it fought the gravity of Malodaar, and Kerr Avon hissed angrily as he was thrown against a storage compartment. Inside that compartment, Vila Restal tensed, slamming his back against the bulkhead. Sweat poured down his face, and helpless tears, as he tried unsuccessfully to steady his ragged breathing and shrink into himself more than he had already. 

He's going to get me. He's going to get me. Oh God, where is he? Get me and get it over. No, don't get me. I want to live. I'm miserable but I want to live. I WANT TO LIVE. I MUST LIVE-- 

Suddenly it was all very clear. Clear as a water-jewel. The murky ice encasing Vila's brain splintered away, leaving a pale burning sense of self and purpose that had been obscured, before. Finally, he thought, relieved. Carefully, yet quickly, he relaxed his muscles, tensed, relaxed again. Quietly he pulled the long, thin glass-impregnated wooden knife from the inner layer of his boot and held it in his right hand, bracing his left against the door of the cramped compartment. His heart beat slowly and steadily, his vision had become supernaturally clear in the buttery-red lighting. He could smell the rich stifling smell of lubricants. 

When he heard heavy boots at the proper distance, he flung the door outward into Avon's body and followed it, landing on his feet, sure and balanced, the knife held outstretched, his left hand ready to grab. 

Avon stumbled to his feet, gun pointed upward. His eyes grew wide with astonishment then, but he trained the gun deliberately on Vila's navel. 

Vila grinned crookedly, his knife hand circling. "More than you bargained for, Kerr Avon?" His voice was startlingly loud and briskly competent. Avon's eyes flicked to the knife and in that instant, Vila knocked the gun aside and plunged the knife upward under the ribcage. Avon collapsed with a small sound and Vila withdrew the knife with a practiced motion, letting the body hit the floor. He wiped the knife on Avon's expensive studded leather jacket and put it back into its hiding place, musing that he now remembered why he'd always carried it. Pity he hadn't remembered three years ago, but that wasn't his fault. 

Vila sighed delicately and carried the sagging awkward corpse to the airlock, tossed it in with enough force to make his back twinge, and let the pressure door go shut with a sucking sound. A small crooked grin crossed his face as he cycled the lock. "Crazy rebel bastard. Never did know his head from his knickers. Should've run with the cash in the first place." 

Jauntily, Vila went to the shuttle's tiny flight deck, where earlier in the day Avon and the ghastly dissolute creature Vila-the-Delta-grade-thief had exchanged companionable remarks. The newly risen Vila noted cheerily that he was done with all of that business, and now could get on with his favorite occupation. 

He removed the activator key from Orac without bothering to speak to the eccentric computer, and competently began readying the shuttle to dock with Scorpio. It certainly was a good thing to know how to pilot a spacecraft again, Vila decided, since he wouldn't be able to keep any of Scorpio's crew, even for such menial duties. 

Docking was accomplished smoothly. The airlock cycled and Vila stepped through, carrying the gun he'd retrieved from the cargo area. Only three and the bounties are for me!he thought cheerily as he shot Tarrant and Dayna first under the ribcage and second in the throat. He grinned his crooked grin again and daintily stepped over the sprawled figures, nudging Dayna's head aside with his boot. Her eyeshadow left a pink smear on the toe and he frowned, but had to ignore it because Soolin, the mercenary gunfighter, still remained to be found. 

Soolin was absurdly fast with a gun, he remembered. He was not, so he tossed the gun onto Tarrant's body and pulled the gold chain from his own neck. Soolin would've heard the shots, of course. Silly of him to have done that so precipitously, but he'd wasted so much time as the thief that, frankly, he couldn't have stopped himself. He shook his head slightly, ruefully, and crept the few steps to Scorpio's flight deck on ant-quiet feet. 

Soolin had to be there, since it was the only area of the ship that was pressurized in flight. She waited for him between the two rows of flight consoles, clip gun balanced professionally in her hand, eyes ready for anything. 

Except, unfortunately, the sight of Vila wearing a self-satisfied smirk. "Vila?" she questioned, her smoothness disturbed. "Has Egrorian done something to you? You swore to me you couldn't be conditioned." 

Vila advanced, hands in his pockets, appearing as harmless as Soolin had always known him to be. He smiled. "I was wrong. They did manage to condition me once. Conditioned me to believe that I couldn't be conditioned, and sent me on my merry, merry way." Merrily he began to sing, a song whose only words were "Death, death, death!" to put her off-balance, and then kicked Soolin's gun from her hand. "You can't cage the big bad wolf," he admonished as he used the neckchain as a garrote until he could pick up Soolin's gun and finish the job. 

He paused. "Bounties first, the someone else to kill. For pay? Hmmnn. That could grow stale, and I'd better keep those Feds off their balance." 

Manually he disengaged the shuttle, with Orac inside. "They will rue the day they tried to condition Restal the Dealer of Death...." And he laughed a self-satisfied laugh. 

the end 


	2. The Wolf Unleashed

The Wolf Unleashed **The Wolf Unleashed  
Alicia Ann Fox  
  
  
**

Vila Restal, who had recently recovered memories of his life before the Delta-grade thief persona, blithely checked over the flight systems of the planet hopper Scorpio, which he had acquired creatively the previous week. He hummed to himself as his eyes scanned the scrolling reports; his booted feet were propped on the console. On his stomach rested the stack of credits that had been his reward for the corpses of Dayna Mellanby, Del Tarrant, and Soolin. Unfortunately the body of Kerr Avon had been lost over Malodaar, but Restal scarcely cared. He'd been amply repaid for that particular killing with his memory, and besides, there was always more money somewhere.

End report, the screen flashed greenly. "May I do anything else for you, Master?" asked the ship's computer, Slave.

"You can shut up," Vila said with glee, "until I tell you to speak, you sniveling hunk of junk. A sheep in a canister, that's what you are."

"I most humbly beg your pardon, Master." The cylinder rotated obsequiously.

"Just can it!" Vila replied, laughing uproariously at his own humor and throwing credits in a shower of paper. After a prolonged interval he quieted, picked up a knife that had formerly belonged to Dayna, and began to clean under his fingernails. Thoughtfully he pressed buttons with his heel and watched lists of nearby planetary systems scroll by again.

"Dum dee dee deedee dum," he sang under his breath. Donder... Catania... Arazi... Gauda Prime... Puchini... "Hmmnn." He reread the synopses on Arazi and Gauda Prime. The former offered gambling galore, but G.P. sounded much tougher. "Wild and woolly and treacherous. Just the place for me."

center#/center

Because he had disposed of Orac in a fit of pique, Restal was forced to land Scorpio on the surface of Gauda Prime, after substantial bribes had changed hands. "I like a planet with proper defenses," he said as he strapped on a pair of clip guns. "You'll keep the ship safe for me, Slave. Confirm."

"Yes, Master."

"I could get to like this. It's only what I deserve."

"Of course, Master."

Vila patted his guns. "We're off to see-- " He interrupted himself. "One of the things about that thief that annoyed me the most was he didn't know any good songs." "We're off to see the wizard...," he warbled as he exited.

Gauda Prime was very green. Most of the green was forest; twenty percent was, or had been, farmland, such as the field of overgrown beans which surrounded Scorpio.

Vila walked along jauntily. Concealed in his loose clothing were his real weapons: two garrotes, a handmade cutting wire, and a glass-impregnated wooden knife. He hummed a little spacefaring ditty as he crossed the field and entered the forest, his eyes wide and innocent, his mouth marred by a smug twist at the corner.

Voices. Vila stepped casually behind a tree and became silent; he knew nothing of woodcraft, but at silence he was expert.

There were two men, both clad in many layers of rough grimy clothing that Vila could smell from his hiding place. Fastidiously he wrinkled his nose but did not move.

One man walked behind the other, holding a rifle, ignoring his prisoner's importunities. Deliberately Vila relaxed his muscles as the strangers passed within yards of him, intending to ignore them and be on his way, but as they came nearer he stiffened involuntarily.

The walk. Few could disguise their walk, and Vila Restal's memory was very good indeed. The man with the rifle, dirty and, as Vila noted, scarred, was Roj Blake.

The twist at the corner of his mouth became a crooked grin. The two men passed him, unaware; he stepped out of his hiding place and said, "Fancy meeting you here."

Blake whirled; his prisoner ran, but Vila cut the fleeing figure down with his clipgun.

"What have you done?!" Blake exclaimed, his voice rising as it always did in surprised fury.

Vila shrugged. "He was getting away. You wanted to keep him, didn't you?" He gestured to the body with his gun.

"But, you... Vila! What are you doing here? I would never have thought-- " Blake turned, nudged the corpse with his toe, turned back. His rifle was safely pointed at the ground. He looked darkly angered, but at the same time bewildered.

"I've changed," Restal said blandly.

"Where's-- "

"Got himself killed. His own fault really. He went after the wrong person."

"Dead?" A half-turn of his body for a moment; then he stared directly at Vila, his scarred eye accentuating his stricken expression. "Avon's dead. I didn't believe the Federation report."

"So it goes." Vila shrugged.

Blake eyed him narrowly. "So why are you here?"

"I actually wasn't looking for you," Restal began. "Being at loose ends, I decided to seek a planet worthy of my talents."

"G.P.?!"

"You seem to have found a niche, Blake."

"Don't--I don't go by that name here."

"Really?" Vila's tone was polite disinterest. "How is the bounty business? There's been a recent boom, I've heard." Vila smiled.

The barrel of Blake's rifle rose fractionally. "Did anyone come with you?"

"Why, no. I work alone." Vila aimed his clipgun at Blake in an eyeblink. "That way I needn't share the fun." Still smiling, he shot.

Blake wasn't there.

From a bed of leaves Roj Blake fired until his rifle was empty and his attacker no longer even twitched. He pushed himself to his knees, stood, and walked away. He dared not look back.

Blake had changed, too.

the end


End file.
